The present invention relates generally to a support arrangement for a system of furniture components and, more particularly, to a support assembly including two support members which each have support surfaces thereon, one of the support members being detachably mounted in a pair of standards and having braces which extend vertically along the pair of standards, and the other support member being detachably mounted between the braces in the standards.
It has long been widely known to selectively position work surfaces or shelves on support members, such as brackets, with the brackets detachably mounted by hooks or other connectors in rows of vertically extending openings, whereby the work surfaces or shelves can be located at any one of a number of vertical portions. A wide variety of shelving, brackets, and standards of this general type are available in hardware stores, home centers, and many other outlets. Such brackets typically include a vertical edge portion from which the hooks or connectors project outwardly, with such vertical edge surfaces positioned adjacent the standard or stanchion when installed.
Brackets which are capable of carrying any significant load in such an arrangement ordinarily include a vertically extending support brace with the hooks or connectors projecting therefrom. When installed in a row of openings on a standard or stanchion, such a brace typically occupies a sizable portion of the standard or stanchion's vertical extent, thereby covering and blocking access to a significant number of the openings on such standard or stanchion.
It is frequently convenient and useful to position a pair of support surfaces one above the other in close relation--such as, for example, a shelf below a work surface for supporting books, equipment, or other items while leaving the work surface relatively clear. However, the braces typically required to support a work surface mounted in such rows of openings will extend to cover such an extent of the openings that brackets for the second support surface or shelf cannot be mounted in the rows of openings at a convenient position close to the work surface in the area into which the braces extend. Thus, such braces effectively reduce the usefulness and adaptability of such furniture systems by preventing convenient mounting of support surfaces in this manner.
Furniture systems which incorporate two vertical rows of openings on each standard are also known in the art, but such standards have previously been used for clearly defined purposes and functions. The standards disclosed in Berg U.S. Pat. No. 5,348,385, for example, are used to allow shelves, tables, and other elements to be mounted in side-by-side fashion on a series of cooperating vertical standards. Thus, in the two rows of slots on any given standard as shown in Berg, a bracket will be mounted in one row for supporting a shelf extending off to one side of the standard, while a second bracket will be mounted in the other row of slots to support another shelf extending laterally in the opposite direction.
Standards having two rows of slots formed therein are also found in the E3200 and 85/185 systems sold by the Knape & Vogt Manufacturing Company of Grand Rapids, Mich. These double-slotted standards, however, are designed to be used with brackets which themselves each have a double row of hooks projecting therefrom and configured to engage the double row of slots. Thus, each individual bracket engages both rows of slots in each standard for the purpose of providing a high strength mounting for the bracket to support large shelves or other surfaces carrying heavy loads.
Neither the Knape & Vogt designs nor the standards disclosed in the Berg patent provide any solution to the above-described problem of positioning a support surface such as a shelf in a location close to and vertically aligned with another support surface having braces extending toward such location.
Accordingly, a need exists for a support assembly furniture system in which a support member including a support surface such as a shelf can be positioned intermediate braces of another support member also having a support surface, such as a work surface, with both support members being detachably mounted on standards or stanchions.